


Mastering The Wolf

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Light Angst, M/M, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:05:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4641858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you have to take your chance when you can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mastering The Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Merenwen for having taken part in snupin100's 400th challenge. She asked for the two of them talking before Remus has to leave the castle at the end of Harry's 3rd year. Originally posted to Livejournal in 2013.

“I fail to see why you have to be so understanding about this.”

“What's not to understand?”

Remus continued packing up his office. It had felt very much like a home, but like all his homes it was only a transitory one. There was nothing to be missed here.

He should have realised that going back was a bad idea. You can never go back. Wasn't that something he had tried to make Harry understand? What he would try and make Sirius understand?

He paused in his packing when he realised that Snape was still standing in the doorway, watching him, face inscrutable.

“Why aren't you angry? Potter is.”

“Harry is just a child.” Remus sighed. None of them were ever going to be able to remember that though, were they?

Snape took a step inside Remus' office and looked around. Remus started sorting through his book collection. It wasn't as if Snape hadn't already been inside his room. Remus couldn't prove his belongings had been minutely inspected, but he could believe it.

“What did you hope to achieve?” Remus asked. He put the last of his books away and locked his trunk as he waited for Snape's reply.

“When?”

“When you taught the student's about werewolves.”

“I was helping them see the hidden dangers they face.” There was a small pause. “If I hadn't...”

Remus nodded. “I suppose you did.”

Snape turned around a couple of jars to better read their contents. Remus sat down in his office chair. His bones creaked and he winced. Snape's fingers almost imperceptibly stilled.

“You still hate me,” Remus said. It wasn't a question.

“I could have been killed.”

“Or worse,” Remus noted. “It would have been worse, wouldn't it, being turned?”

Snape's glare took in Remus' exhausted body, and then he raised an eyebrow. Remus snorted a laugh.

“Yes, I take your point.” Remus' expression turned sombre. “I wouldn't wish this curse on my worst enemy.”

“Anyone I know?” Snape asked.

Remus looked confused. “I -”

“Your worst enemy.”

Remus locked eyes with Snape. “You might be surprised.”

Snape turned away first. He went to the window and ran a finger along the windowsill. It came back clean.

“What did Dumbledore say to you?” Snape asked.

Remus' heart clenched at the memory. Knowing that he would have to leave and having Dumbledore tell him so were two very different propositions.

“Nothing you couldn't work out for yourself.”

There was a longer pause and Remus sat back to wait. There had been a time once, long ago, when Remus thought Snape could have been another person he could confide his secret in. Before the prank, before the Dark Mark. Before.

“War is coming.”

Remus felt a shiver travel along his spine; it was the last thing he expected Snape to say.

“Whose side will you be on?” Remus found himself asking, willing the words back before he'd even finished.

The glare Snape levelled on him would have killed a lesser man.

“Whose side do you think?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“I think you've not always had your own best interests at heart, never mind anyone else's.”

It clearly wasn't what Snape had expected him to say. Again, he waited. Snape had obviously come here for a reason, and Remus had nowhere particularly pressing he needed to be.

“There are a lot of things you don't know. Thing it would be safer for you to remain ignorant of.”

“I've always suspected,” Remus began, as if addressing a portrait of a fine lady on the opposite wall, “that you did more during the War than any of us. Dumbledore would never have hired you if there was any doubt in his mind that you are, at heart, a good man.”

Snape snorted. “That only goes to prove how little you know Dumbledore.”

Remus blinked, surprised. There was genuine vitriol behind Snape's words.

“You don't have to stay here if it makes you so unhappy.”

“Don't I?” Snape asked. Remus found he couldn't identify Snape's expression. “Slytherin have been abandoned by everyone, I won't leave them unprotected.”

“Dumbledore...”

“Tolerates them. As he does me.” Snape paused and flicked through a discarded book before replacing it on the shelf. “We're _useful._ ”

Remus had the sinking feeling that he was watching the beginning of the end.

“What are you going to do?”

Snape moved over to Remus' desk and sat in a chair opposite.

“It would take too long to explain all the details, but the Dark Arts job is cursed. If we didn't get you out, alive...”

“We?”

“Dumbledore and I.”

“Dumbledore?” Remus repeated.

“Always,” Snape replied. “Many fingers in many pies.”

“And he knew this when he hired me?”

Snape nodded. “I have long given up trying to decipher the way that man's mind works.” He smiled slightly, a disconcerting sight. “Of course, he left the method of dispatch to me.”

“His first mistake.”

Snape shrugged. “Hardly his first. Or mine,” he added as an afterthought.

“Is that an apology?”

“No.”

Remus laughed. Only Snape would save his life by ruining it.

They stared at each other and Remus wished for his own time-turner, to turn back the clock, shake some common-sense into his younger self, and James and Sirius. He wished he could tell Lily not to give up on her friend. He wished he could tell Snape that Voldemort wasn't the answer.

“What do you think he'll make you do? To prove your loyalty?”

“Dumbledore?” Snape asked with a frown.

“No, Voldemort.”

They both winced as the sound of his name seemed to reverberate around the room.

Snape looked curiously at Remus. “Easy to forget that you actually do possess a modicum of intelligence.”

Remus ignored him. “Well?”

Snape sighed. “At Hogwarts I'm more valuable to him than ever. I shall simply lead the double life I always have.”

“It's exhausting isn't it? Being two people at once.”

For a moment Remus thought he saw sympathy behind Snape's eyes, before it was gone.

“We must all stand by the consequences of our actions.”

“What did yo do?” Remus asked in a whisper. How could he not have seen the masks that Snape hid behind? Dumbledore and Voldemort between them would tear apart all the goodness Snape once had.

Snape stood up. “It has been agreed that I will continue to provide you with the Wolfsbane potion. It is too volatile to be delivered by owl, so I will do so in person.”

Remus blinked. “You will...”

“Was any of my previous sentence unclear?”

“Most of it, actually,” Remus replied with a smile. “But I will gratefully accept.” He hesitated. “You know of course where I am going to live?”

Snape's answering sigh was more human than Remus had ever heard from him before. “I have been informed.”

“Maybe it's time for a new start?”

“Some day’s that's all I wish for,” Snape said wistfully. “But people like me don't get new starts.” He rubbed absent-mindedly at his arm. Remus dared hardly breathe, not wanting to break whatever spell was making Snape actually confide in him for once.

“I don't believe it's ever too late. Not for anyone.”

Snape's smile was twisted and not at all kind. “That's because you are a Gryffindor. And one man's bravery is another man's stupidity.”

Remus stood up, walked right up to Snape, cupped his startled face in his hands and kissed him. The kiss didn't last very long but Remus was certain he felt Snape respond, before he hastily pushed Remus away.

They stared at each other a moment before Snape turned around with a swirl of his cape, and headed for the door.

“What was that?” Remus asked, before Snape disappeared for good. “Brave or stupid?”

Snape paused and looked back at him. It would be an expression that Remus would fight hard to remember for the rest of his days, a man weighed down by responsibility, who still dared hope, despite himself.

“Brave,” Snape said. “It was very brave.”

Remus smiled. “I thought so.”

Remus took a step forward but Snape gently shook his head.

“I will see you next month, Remus. I will owl you the time so no one is surprised by my presence. Amusing as that would be.”

“I'll work on him,” Remus said. “It will be fine.”

“We're harbouring a fugitive and the fate of the world rests on a boy who has no idea what he's doing. Fine doesn't come into it.”

“It's a collective effort,” Remus said. “Harry can't do this alone. We can't let him.”

“I never believed he was dead,” Snape said, out of nowhere. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I don't remember a time when I wasn't plotting, one way or another. Even surviving my home...A whole generation, born to fear a single powerful wizard...”

“He was defeated once, we can do it again.”

“Now you’re being more stupid than brave,” Snape said. But there was no heat to his words and Remus felt the tension in his belly uncurl. “One month.”

And then Snape was gone.

Remus smiled to himself and flicked his wand, making his chest float behind him. Hogwarts had been a good home but perhaps now was the time to put away childish things and build a new one. Being brave had got him some pretty good results so far.

Time to be even braver.


End file.
